When you have a best friend, their opinion of you really matters. That's kind of the whole idea. You might have friends or acquaintances, and you get along just fine, and it's great to hang around with them, but maybe at the end of the day their general opinion of how you act and how you handle situations doesn't affect you very much.

Take Mokuba as an example, if you will. He's got him some friends. Yugi, and Joey, and all that. And it's great to hang around with them. But does Mokuba really take much stock in how they think of him? Does he change his behavior for them? Probably not.

The mark of a "best friend," if such a thing honestly exists in an objective sense, is that you want them to be proud of you. You want them to think well of you. They become a part of your family.

I've been talking about how Mokuba and Connor are best friends, kind of leading things in that direction and all, but I haven't really explored it all that much.

So…I wrote this.


Connor Brinkley had met Mokuba's other friends; Tristan Taylor and Joey Wheeler. At first he'd been intimidated. They were Adults, younger than his parents but older than his cousin Matt, and Connor was still at the age where Adults were an entirely removed institution. Kids didn't socialize with them, they didn't socialize with Kids. That's just how things worked.

But then, Mokuba didn't care about stuff like that.

As it turned out, Tristan and Joey were good guys. What had seemed scary at first was funny to him now, and Connor looked forward to those days when he got to hang out with them. Today, they were at the mall, talking about their other friend, Téa Gardner, and Mokuba seemed to be trying his level best to care.

And failing.

"…Not sayin' I agree either way anymore, man," Joey was saying. "Seriously. But still, ya gotta admit the guy don't make that good an impression. Hell, neither do I. Took her damn near forever to warm up to me. She still gives me this look sometimes like she wants to skin me alive."

"Everybody gives you that look," Tristan said.

"Your mom gives me that look."

"So, not giving a good impression makes my Niisama a murderer?" Mokuba asked sharply.

"No," Joey said, holding up his hands, "but it means it don't surprise her that somebody'd say that. So when she saw the article, she didn't question it. She ain't been in the city for over a year, man. If she'd been here, she'da known the truth."

"People don't question stuff they think might be true," Tristan added, taking a sip of soda and leaning back in his chair. "Ya gotta remember, Mokuba, most people don't see the side o' Kaiba you do. He does that on purpose."

Connor thought they had a point, but he hadn't tried to bring it up because he didn't really think he knew Seto Kaiba well enough to say it. Plus…he wasn't ashamed to admit that he was afraid of Mokuba when he got like this. There was something in his eyes, something in the way he talked, that made him…dangerous.

Mokuba was younger than Connor by a few months, but you never would have known that. Mokuba had been through more terror and tragedy than Connor thought (secretly hoped) he ever would. The worst that had ever happened to Connor was that time he'd gone camping, fallen off a boulder and broken his leg.

Mokuba…

Well, Mokuba never even talked about the things he'd been through, which told Connor more than he ever needed to know. Mokuba just got this haunted look on his face, like he wasn't even there anymore, and…

Maybe this was why Mokuba's friends were so much older than he was.

They were the only sort of people who could relate to him.

"…Doesn't writing her off like this just make her right?" Connor dared to ask, and the other three stared at him, like they'd just realized he was still there. "I mean…if you don't give her a chance to say sorry…doesn't that just make her feel justified? Won't she just…hate him more?"

The silence that followed made him want to bolt for the exit.

Joey frowned thoughtfully. "…I dunno if it's safe to say Téa hates anybody. She just…don't approve. But…you might have a point, there, con man. Just…think about it. Mokuba, don't you kinda take it on yourself to convince people Kaiba ain't so bad? Ya convinced us. Sort of. Think of Téa as just another project. You know she's not a bad person. She's just…uninformed."

Mokuba still didn't look convinced, but his demeanor had shifted (subtly) from determined and angry to offended and sulky. He crossed his arms and leaned back, pouting. "…Fine. I'll…apologize. Or something. Whatever." He glared at Connor, who thankfully knew the younger Kaiba well enough to know when he was faking. "Whose side are you on, anyway?"

"…The side of…right?"

The table erupted with laughter.

"You're all right, man," Joey said, clapping Connor on the shoulder.

"I like this one," Tristan put in.

In the back of his mind, Connor wondered if crying hysterically and wetting himself would ruin the moment.